The Wayfarer's Rod

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

I love watching winter happen on the other side of a large, sunny, coffee-shop window. As the deliciously warm caffeine started affecting my brain, I looked across the table at my brother who was talking about something less interesting than my own thoughts as I wondered what he looks like without glasses. Then I thought, "What if he were thinking the same thing about me?" And then, "What if we both took our glasses off to see each other and then neither one of us could see the other?" Then I smiled with very poor timing in relationship to what he was saying and betrayed my inattention. Then I said... never mind. It wasn't that interesting.

Humanity is Myopic. No telescope or microscope ever sees far enough to quench our interest in seeing further. We also can't see as far or as clearly into the past or future as we would like. Every evolutionist and creationist would love to have the time-lapsed, prehistoric surveillance video that shows things happening just as they say. And then they would love to fast-forward that video into the future at least far enough to beat the stock market and rule the world with the iron fist of empirical truth. No. Wait. I think I got my groups confused.

Anyway, as the empirical ruler of this blog, I'll use my bully pulpit to bludgeon all five of my readers with the magnifying lens of scripture and you can judge for yourselves whether it's in focus or just lighting a philosophical anthill on fire. As far as we can see in any direction, "his eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen" and that's the only thing getting clearer as science extends our vision. We're discovering an ever more complex universe that's already beyond our ability to understand it, or even see it. Not strange to those who already know "his paths are beyond tracing out." That should temper your expectations but not dampen your interest.

Sometimes I run without my glasses and enjoy how the world sparkles in the sunlight when things are a little fuzzy. Sometimes I trip on rocks, too, and curse my crappy vision when I'm not paying good enough attention to my limits. Being myopic isn't all bad and you can't avoid it anyway. So don't be afraid to enjoy that fuzzy sparkle past where we can see clearly. And don't overlook what is clear. If you can't see God when he's close enough to focus on, he's the stone you'll trip on every time. Now I should go apologize to my brother for telling him he looks better when I'm not wearing my glasses.

Friday, February 9, 2018

"Come, you spirits. Make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose!" - Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
You're on your own to figure out what compunctious means. Could be another one of those words Shakespeare made up to say what there wasn't a word for yet. What I do know is it's more than fun listening to my sweet-hearted daughter trying to embrace her evil side well enough to deliver such a soul chilling line in this year's Shakespeare co-op. This morning, I caught her on the couch with that distant, nearly teary thoughtfulness in her eyes and I stopped to ask where her mind was at.
"I was just thinking about how God gave us the knowledge of good and evil."

Not exactly what I was ready for.

She continued, "It's good to know Him with the knowledge of both so that good means something."

Since I couldn't keep up with intellectual rigor of the conversation, I did the fatherly thing and said, "I'm proud of you" and walked away before it became obvious I was out of my league.

I felt my feet come back underneath me a little later as she was struggling to give into her dark side for Lady Macbeth. Now this I can help with!
"Remember that time when you where really angry at your brothers for calling you a name?"

"Yes."

"How did you feel?"

"Angry," she answered patiently wondering how I could say she felt angry and then ask how she felt in nearly the same breath.

"Did you have any thoughts of wanting to do something to them?"

Can't you just picture Satan wearing my skin and masquerading as a real dad right now? With a slightly evil edge to her sweet-hearted laugh she slid her pointer finger across her throat with the sound effect of a juicy cut and finished with the necessary tongue hanging out of the mouth and to the side.

"Now you're Lady Macbeth," I said and her smile broadened.

Before you worry about me creating a junior sociopath, my wife and I encouraged her take the role against her objections by focusing on the good character that the play promotes through the victory of prince Malcolm in the end. The greater the bad guy, the greater the good guy who beats them, right? And there it is again, "It's good to know Him with the knowledge of both so that good means something."

Friday, January 26, 2018

After the false alarm in Hawaii, I'm waiting for the guy who looks around when he comes out of his bunker twenty years from now and says, "Wow! Things recovered really fast! Wait... What?!" Yes, I know I recycled that joke but I'm just so proud of it.

But seriously, have you ever been in a situation where sudden death seemed eminent? It's a life changer. Well, it is for at least the hour it takes the adrenaline rush to wear off. I'm gauging that by how long it took me to decide there was nothing better to do than go back out riding after a 40mph van flung me off my bike in Phoenix years ago. I remember the moment when I realized I couldn't get out of the way in time. The instant I realized it, my mind moved on to other things like, "Crap! I was really looking forward to a Filiberto's burrito! I really wanted to get married, too. I can't believe how warm it is tonight!"

But seriously, again, we could really take a lesson from the Hawaii scare. When you're certain your earthly goods are about to burn, depreciation happens fast. The van that hit me happened to have "Jesus saves" smudged with a two-fingered line into the dirt on the rear window. Since the irony is obvious, I'll move on to say the driver wasn't excited that I noticed as the policeman quizzed him about more pressing "ironies". Let's at least correct the one where we say we're living for the Kingdom while we're collecting as much as we can for the fire. It's worth repeating the story that when Rockefeller died, his accountant was asked how much he left. He answered, "All of it."Put it where it lasts. To the Kingdom.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

"Neurotics build castles in the sky.Psychotics live in them.Psychologists collect the rent." - Jerome Lawrence

As I was taking care of my budget the other day, I was keenly aware of how much my giving cut into what I was able to pay toward the principal on my house. When I spoke up about it, my wife immediately framed our giving as making a different kind of principal payment. Being a homeowner with a mortgage really is a matter of principal, literally and philosophically. Literally, the principal owner of "my" house will take control of it if I quite making the payments. I'm only the homeowner philosophically until I pay ALL the principal.

Back to my wife's point, one of Christ's teachings, The Parable of the Talents, was about him making a principal investment in three different guys. The one who returned the principal without even paying the interest it should have earned lost the metaphorical house, a place in Christ's kingdom. The other two faithful homeowners who made their interest payments without any fuss got the house and then some. I'm not sure the bank that holds my current mortgage will be that generous but I am very much the neurotic/psychotic living primarily for my castle in the sky.

So here's the equation that I struggle with. The more I spend on interest here, the less I spend on principle there. I'm convinced you can get in for free but you buy the house, in large part with what you spend your money on this side of the kingdom. And more money spent on interest paid to my bank is less money spent on the things God tabulates to our credit when we enter his economy. Did I just say credit? Maybe I'll at least get a good card with a high limit. Then I can throw a serious - I mean proper and responsible of course - party for the angels that had my back through all the mayhem here along with the cloud of witnesses that encouraged them not let that stupid bicycle stunt accident be any worse. Basically, I'm saying I may have to rent a place for a while.

I think I just identified professional clergy as the psychologists. Not saying that's bad. They need a job, too.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

“Are you cool?” the obviously cool person I had never met asked from the other end of the phone.

“Uhhh, I don’t know. That’s not really up to me, is it?” I asked sealing my uncoolness.

This phone call started off as a missionary effort by friends of the family to help me connect in the town we were moving to. Now it was a lesson to the poor, cool kid on the other end about why nerds stay nerdy.

Being a church-raised nerd who was taught that nearly everything was infinitely significant, this verse from the book of Ecclesiastes threw me off for a long time. It didn’t seem to line up with live right, go to heaven and get rewarded for everything. Then on a field trip, I watched one of my orchestra friends have a mental breakdown in our hotel room when he realized he had lost track of the day, eaten meat on the sabbath (or something like that) and was now apparently destined for hell. There was no consoling him until he called his parents who explained that there was some simple ritual to make things right again. Phweew. That was close.

And really, really weird. I would even say, "Meaningless!" I didn’t even know you had to do that stuff to stay out of hell and it seemed easy enough to right the wrong I was still unconvinced I should worry about it quite that much. I mean, our orchestra performance is tomorrow and If you can’t pull it together I’ll be second chair viola and I’m not ready for that!

I know the meaning of life is something a little larger than I have the mind for on my own. I also know the things I don’t understand, like my friend’s meltdown and being cool on purpose, are comparatively meaningless to me, lagging far behind more meaningful things like dinner with my family, staring into the world of my aquariums or the euphoria of passing out in my own bed after a twelve hour night shift. The teacher in Ecclesiastes also says, “A man can do no better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him who can eat or find enjoyment?” Seems good to me.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

This is my answer to a recent writing prompt: Why I Write.As a socially awkward high-schooler, I fell in love with writing when an entire English class laughed at my whimsical use of five, disparate spelling words in the same sentence, a feat I could never accomplish at a conversational pace. Suddenly, I was more witty than weird, at least enough to divert some attention from my coke bottle glasses, mullet and Hawaiian shirt with bright yellow Velcro in place of the buttons. After that, I discovered angst ridden poetry as a way to vent the emotional casualties of still being socially clueless even if I was witty. I knew the world would read it one day and realize what a great and influential intellect I was. Now it reminds me what a great and influential intellect I wasn’t. All because those words are still there to read, to transcend the time that’s passed and to allow me to meditate on them again. Writing helps me understand myself and share it with others who grew up thinking wits would make a bigger difference, when In the end, it was actually the Velcro, Hawaiian shirt.